Membership fees cover expenses required for executive council members to visit campuses and attend CPFA, CCA/CTA, AND FACC meetings & conferences as well as meetings with the Chancellor’s Office at the State Capital. Production of CPFA Annual Conference. Fees also pay for production and publication of the bi-annual newsletter, promotional items, and website maintenance.

Is it important to complete all the information on the membership application? ~ back to list

Yes, when you join, we would also appreciate your completing all the information that we ask of you such as where you work (campus/district), subject areas, and personal email address (as opposed to campus email). It is a kind of census, so that we can develop a significant profile of adjunct and contingent faculty throughout California. It will also help us to draw on one another’s individual skills and interests. For more information, please click “How does CPFA plan to realize its goals?”

Why does the application ask for an email other than my campus email? ~ back to list

Your personal email will most likely not change over time. A campus email may change depending on your current employment arrangements. Also, all campus email accounts are property of the campus that issues them. You may not be able, or want to, use your campus email for personal messages.

Is CPFA a union, and if not, must I choose between CPFA and the union movement? ~ back to list

CPFA is not a union. Its models are such organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the National Organization for Women (NOW), and – in their reliance on the new media – MoveOn and MomsRising. We look forward to working with faculty unions as well as other labor and human-rights organizations to achieve common goals. Even so, as an independent organization we shall always rely on our own members to decide our policies and projects. CPFA subscribes to the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including Article 23 (4): “ Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his [or her] interests.” CPFA’s mission is to reform the current, profoundly inequitable practices of academic employment so as to establish equal treatment for all faculty. CPFA will support union negotiations and legislative initiatives that promote this vision. Some of our members are currently represented by unions, and others are not. CPFA will enable those who have joined unions to have a more effective role there. If some of our members who are not in unions choose eventually to join one or to form one, CPFA will assist their efforts either by recommending unions who have earned our confidence or by helping to build new bargaining-units.

Is there a relationship between CPFA and Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL)? ~ back to list

COCAL has set a necessary and inspiring example for us. It organizes major conferences every other year, it owns an important discussion list, and it is building an international network of activists. To maintain its focus, however, it has decided not to become a membership organization. In undertaking this further project, CPFA appreciates the fact that many of us will continue to have other professional associations. Indeed our aim is to build a reform movement throughout the American system of higher education. While CPFA’s relationship with COCAL is not formalized, it is profoundly important to us. Both organizations are part of a single, urgent movement to bring attention to the prevailing inequities of the academic workplace and to achieve far-reaching reforms. All of us are looking forward to COCAL IX, planned for Mexico City in August 2010. COCAL has often discussed the prospects for a membership association, and CPFA is proud to trace its beginnings to a floor discussion at COCAL VIII, in San Diego in August 2008.

May I join CPFA if I am not an adjunct or contingent faculty member? ~ back to list

Yes, everyone is welcome to join. From the outset, CPFA has included tenured faculty, administrators, students, and other stakeholders in higher education. Ours is not a special interest but the public good.

Professional Advancement – salary steps – scheduled opportunities for promotion – annual stipend for professional development – eligibility to compete for development funds

Benefits – full health, life, and retirement benefits for faculty who teach at least half-time – pro-rated employer contributions for faculty who teach less than half-time – disability and sick leave – family and emergency leave – pro-rated sabbaticals

Unemployment Insurance – access to the same benefits as other employees between jobs

What benefits and services can I expect if I join CPFA? ~ back to list

All of us will benefit from a thorough reform of employment practices in higher education. The benefits of CPFA are not services per se but the power of our numbers. We are working to restore the profession of teaching and to ameliorate the substandard conditions and terms of employment now allotted to the majority of higher education faculty. Along the way, we shall report on specific cases and crises in order to provide one another with the strengths of our individual and combined resources. As far as our means allow – always farther with each new member – we shall support any and every effort of reform in the particular time and place where it is needed. CPFA aims to change the status quo by uniting over 46,000 part-time faculty in the California Community College system and making them distinctly visible as a coherent force in a better America.

Reform is needed at many levels, including state and federal law. CPFA intends to promote new standards and protections for academic employment through concerted, informed, and sustained political action: during election campaigns, in state legislative and executive offices, and also in Congress and the Executive Branch. In some cases the judicial system will be our best recourse, for instance through class-action lawsuits. From the outset, we shall rely on adjunct law professors among our membership to direct our legal efforts. We shall also promote efforts by such organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Employment Law Project (NELP) to improve the working lives of adjunct and contingent faculty.

CPFA’s vision is to replace a system of employment practices in higher education that has segregated faculty unjustly and to the detriment of faculty and students together. In its place we are joining forces to build a genuinely unified system with equitable pay, rights and benefits. We seek to transform the current, exploitative, two-tiered paradigm into an academic system based on equity, justice, fairness and dignity for all faculty. To restore the integrity of higher education and to ensure quality education for our students, we require basic civil rights, equal pay for equal work, job security as a guarantor of academic freedom, equal health and retirement benefits, and equity in the academic environment, in the classroom and in faculty governance.